A Facebook Food Group Comes Together To Make A Cookbook

The pandemic gave them lemons. So they made lemon rosemary chicken.

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A Facebook group that swapped homemade recipes after restaurants were shuttered during lockdown has blossomed into a vibrant online community and has now produced a cookbook.

“In the Quarantine Kitchen” offers some 120 recipes from pastas to fish dishes that pandemic users have proudly posted — with all proceeds going to charity.

“It kind of grew and grew and snowballed,” said Daniella Cangiano, one of the organizers. “We were able to take something really negative and make it something really positive.”

Some dishes are cherished family hand-me-downs, like Nanny’s Stuffed Calamari in Red Sauce and Aunt Nellie’s Fried Chicken. Others were concocted during the pandemic, like one for tres leches ice pops that was created because ice cream shops were closed. It uses cans of condensed and evaporated milk, coconut milk, vanilla and a sprinkle of cinnamon.

The project started in the Staten Island home of the Cangiano family. Traci Cangiano and her daughters Daniella and Kristina launched a Facebook page in March 2020 when the COVID-19 quarantine began.

“We started it as a way to just share our dinner with our family and friends. We didn’t see in the beginning what it would become. We just thought it was something fun to do, something to distract us,” said Daniella Cangiano.